


The Gods Are Not Dead

by PyrrhaIphis



Category: Ancient Greek Religion & Lore, Wonder Woman (Movies - Jenkins)
Genre: Fix-It, Flashbacks, Gen, Post-Canon, a bit tongue-in-cheek
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-25
Updated: 2020-07-24
Packaged: 2021-03-05 00:35:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,942
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25495453
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PyrrhaIphis/pseuds/PyrrhaIphis
Summary: Even as Diana is worried by the signs of another war brewing in Germany, she receives a mysterious summons from another immortal in China.  When she gets there, she learns that almost everything she thought she knew about the gods is wrong...
Comments: 6
Kudos: 5





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Feel free to imagine Sir Laurence Olivier as Zeus and Maggie Smith as Thetis, btw. Goodness knows I do. Well, okay, actually this particular Zeus lacks Olivier's majesty, so he's a bit more like the one in "Jason and the Argonauts"...

**London, 1934**

Etta Candy bustled into the flat, her arms full of folders. “They won’t be giving me any more, dearie,” she sighed, setting the stack down on the desk beside Diana. “The news out of Germany may be more grim than we’re being allowed to know. And as far as they know, I was only ever a secretary.”

Without even glancing at the information Etta had brought her, Diana frowned at the newspapers in front of her, sliding them aside so she could look at more of the headlines at a time. There was much in the news stories that the mortals weren’t seeing—and much more that simply wasn’t there. She had gone to Germany and heard some of the rhetoric that man was using. Urging hatred on a suffering people, stirring them up to slaughter innocents. What was beginning now in Germany was every ugly promise of the worthlessness of humans that Ares had made being fulfilled without him.

“You’re going to do something foolish, are you?” Etta asked, taking a seat on a nearby chair. “Don’t know if I want a warning to be safely out of harm’s way, or if I want to come with you this time.”

Diana laughed, turning her attention to her friend and roommate. “You would only get in my way,” she said. “Even Amazons don’t go into battle once they’re old.”

“I’m not old just yet,” Etta insisted. “Besides, I thought they’re all immortal, like you.”

“Time passes differently on Themiscyra,” Diana sighed. “If they leave the island, they begin to age like other women. But I…” Her divine blood was a protection, and a curse. Trying not to think about it, she turned her attention to the classified information Etta had obtained. Despite the number of folders, a preliminary glance through their contents did not indicate much that would be of use to her. It was not, after all, sufficient simply to walk in there and kill the man responsible for the hate. His followers might unite the more strongly behind his message, insisting their Fuhrer had been martyred for their cause of slaughter and death.

No, assassination would never work. Better to make his people see how mad he was, to make them understand that love, not hate, was the way to the future. The trick was figuring out _how_ …

“Oh, and the post came while I was out,” Etta suddenly said, pulling a few letters out of her handbag. “You’ve got an odd one.” The letter she selected from the others was on sepia-colored paper that looked brittle in her hands. “Addressed to Princess Diana of Themiscyra. No postage and no return address. Sealed at the back with a bit of wax.” She turned the letter over in her hands. “The wax has a Chinese character in it. Can’t read it, myself, but I suppose you can.”

Diana nodded, and accepted the mysterious letter. The paper was hand-made, she was sure of it, and possibly very old. Certainly it was made in the fashion of the first true paper, following the earliest Chinese methods. “The character in the wax means ‘West’.”

“Does that tell you who it’s from?”

“Not at all.” Diana picked up a letter-opener off the table, sliding one finger nostalgically along the sword-shaped blade before using it to pry off the sealing wax and open the envelope. The letter inside was written in a very old dialect of Mandarin Chinese, so old that Diana had trouble reading it.

“Well? Don’t keep us in suspense!” Etta let out a laugh, and patted Diana’s knee. “I shouldn’t like to die of old age before I know what it says.”

“I thought you weren’t old yet,” Diana reminded her. “It’s very odd. The writer does not identify herself except as the Mother of the West. She says that she must speak to me, immortal to immortal, in her home, as soon as possible. And she has included a map.” The map led to a mountain in western China…

Etta let out a noise of admiration. “So it’s not just the Greek gods, then? They’re all real? Who’d have thought that!”

“No, it’s not—it cannot be that simple.” If all gods were real, if all belief systems were real, then how could Zeus have created mankind?

“Well, what are we waiting for? Let’s pack our bags and find out,” Etta said.”

“We?”

“How many chances am I going to have to meet a goddess in the flesh?” Etta laughed and shook her head. “Apart from you, I mean.”

“I’m not a goddess.” Diana put the letter back in the envelope. “And neither is the woman who wrote this. She cannot be.”

“Regardless, she knows where you come from, and that you’re immortal. Isn’t that reason enough to see her?”

“Yes, that’s true,” Diana agreed, “but there’s no reason for you to come with me.”

***

Purchasing seats on a flight to Kathmandu had been simple enough, as had been buying supplies for the trip. Negotiating with guides and locals every step of the trip across the Tibetan plateau, on the other hand…Diana had to admit that, despite her initial inclination to leave the other woman behind, Etta had proven worth her weight in gold. She seemed to know limitless tricks to convince men to do things they didn’t want to do. Including taking them halfway up the mountain indicated on the map, and then simply leaving them there.

It was the tallest peak for many miles in any direction, and the top was shrouded in clouds. There was an energy about the mountain that Diana could sense—it reminded her of Themiscyra, in fact—but Etta didn’t feel anything, so she assumed none of the local mortals could, either. Despite that, though, part of their guide’s hesitance had been due to the mountain’s sacred nature. The fact that it was known to be special even to the mortals was intriguing, and full of promise. She could only hope, as they struggled their way up the forbidding side of the mountain, that the promise would be fulfilled in a pleasant manner.

“If we’re going to be climbing up any sheer rock faces, I’ll never make it,” Etta shouted at her over the howl of the wind.

“I told you to stay behind!” Diana reminded her. She had said that repeatedly, particularly after they arrived in this cold and forbidding landscape.

“Too late now, isn’t it?”

“Perhaps I’ll be able to carry you up.” It might be a little awkward, scaling a cliff with Etta riding on her back, but Diana certainly had the strength for it. The question was if Etta had the strength to hold on that long. Though she could perhaps be tied in place…

They climbed upwards through the snow in silence for at least an hour before they came to a sheer, forbidding cliff face. “Even you would have trouble getting up that!” Etta exclaimed, staring up at the cliff in disbelief. “It’d be easier to scale the Tower Bridge!”

Diana frowned. Something felt _off_ about this. “There must be a way around it,” she said, shaking her head. “Surely I would not have been sent an invitation to a place no one could access.” She moved closer to the cliff, hoping to spot hand-holds in the stone. Seeing none, she reached out to touch it, to see how soft the stone was, and get an idea of how hard it would be to gouge her own handholds while carrying Etta. Her hand passed right through the stone.

“How are you doing that?” Etta asked, moving closer to peer at Diana’s arm disappearing into the rock. “No debris—it doesn’t even look like there’s a hole!”

Diana laughed. “Because there is no rock.” She stepped forward, straight through the cliff, and felt the warmth of passing through a magical barrier, much like the one around Themiscyra. The cloudy sky and the whipping, snow-filled winds were replaced with blue skies and surprisingly warm air that smelled faintly of peach blossoms. In front of her eyes was a large staircase carved into the rock of the mountain, decorated at every inch with foreign gods and heroes.

She had barely taken in the view in front of her when Etta stepped up beside her, and let out some very unladylike language. “So what is it?” she added, apparently over her shock. “Where do the stairs lead?”

“Only one way to find out,” Diana replied, smiling. “I expect we will find the woman who sent me that letter at the top, but precisely who she is, I do not know.”

They began to ascend the staircase, but had not gotten far before a pair of young women in flowing gowns came into view, descending the stairs to meet them. The gowns were the elaborate traditional gowns of the ancient Chinese court, both in green and peach; one had outer robes that were green and inner robes of peach, while the other had inner green robes and outer peach ones. They looked so like each other that they could have been twins, and were almost certainly sisters. As the four of them met, the two strangers bowed to Diana. “Welcome to Mount Kunlun, Princess Diana of Themiscyra,” they said in chorus. “The divine mother awaits you.”

“Mt. Kunlun is nowhere near here,” Etta said, giving them a suspicious stare. “Who are you?”

“The mountain the mortals refer to as Kunlun is not the true Kunlun,” one of the sisters said, casting a cold glance at Etta.

“The divine mother did not request you to bring any servants with you,” the other sister told Diana.

“Etta is my friend, not my servant,” Diana informed them, “and without her help I would have had trouble reaching this location. I am still unaccustomed to the world of men and how best to navigate it without making a spectacle of myself.”

The two sisters looked at each other uncertainly, then looked back at Diana. “Very well,” one said. “But she cannot meet the divine mother,” the other added, as if completing the first one’s thought.

Diana agreed to their terms—though Etta seemed annoyed by them—and the four of them continued to climb the stairs. After quite the long climb, they came into sight of a magnificent palace with a golden roof. The scent of peach blossoms wafted over the walls as they approached the door into the regal compound.

The sister in the green robe set a hand on Etta’s shoulder. “You will remain here, outside the palace, with me.”

“It will be fine,” Diana assured the worried-looking Etta. “There is no danger here.” The very air itself radiated a peace and harmony that Diana had never experienced before, not even in Themiscyra.

Etta sighed deeply. “Fine, but I expect a full report on whatever happens inside! And a place to sit,” she added, with a cold glance at the sisters.

“I will send servants with a seat and light refreshments,” the sister in the peach robe assured her. “Now, please accompany me to the divine mother, Princess Diana.”

Diana found herself led in through the palace’s massive gates. Everything within appeared to have come directly from ancient illustrations of Chinese divine palaces, which certainly lent a great deal of credibility to the claims of the two sisters that the person who had sent for Diana was in some way a divinity.

They passed through numerous halls and corridors until they arrived at a pleasant sitting room, with an open doorway leading into a peach garden. Seated within the room was a most beautiful woman in long, elegant robes of multi-colored silks. Her long, jet-black hair was intricately arrayed on top of her head, beneath an ornate headdress of jade and gold, decorated with peaches, dragons and phoenixes.

The woman rose, and extended a hand towards Diana. “Welcome, Diana, Princess of Themiscyra, daughter of Zeus, thunder-lord of Hellas. We have much important business to discuss. Perhaps you would like some tea while we speak?”

“That would be most kind, thank you.” Diana did not truly wish to partake in any tea—she did not entirely enjoy the drink, no matter how many times Etta served it to her—but it would be rude to refuse to accept her host's hopsitality. “But you have me at a disadvantage,” she added, once the sister in the peach-colored robe left the room to fetch the tea. “You know much about me, but I do not know who you are.”

The woman smiled, and resumed her seat, gesturing Diana to sit opposite her. “I have many names to the mortals below. You may call me Xiwangmu, if you wish to have a name for me.”

Diana nodded. “I have heard the name—a Taoist goddess?”

“That is not incorrect, but over-simplified.” Xiwangmu smiled. “I am the Mother of the West, with all that encompasses.”

That seemed to Diana to be much less descriptive and far too mysterious, but the arrival of the refreshments prevented her from asking for details. The tea poured into her cup had a fruity aroma utterly unlike anything served to her in England. It tasted of peaches and honey, and filled her with a light energy, as if she had just awakened from a long nap. “Ah, this is delicious.”

“Thank you. It is my very special peach tea.”

Diana had another sip, then set the cup aside. “I would like to know why you have summoned me,” she said.

“As you were not properly educated on the subject, I wished to inform you of the proper place of immortals in the world of modern men,” Xiwangmu told her. “The mortals have moved beyond their reliance upon us, and all immortals—with a few unpleasant exceptions—have agreed to stand aside and merely watch the mortals from afar. Our interactions with them must be limited to guidance in dreams, and the most minute adjustments that will go unnoticed by those they are meant to protect.”

“You are saying you do not wish me to become involved in the war that is brewing.”

“That is precisely what I am saying, but that is not the only thing I am saying.” Xiwangmu smiled, and shook her head. “You have been forgiven for your earlier interference, since you had a duty to clean up your father’s mess. But what is happening now is a purely mortal matter. As much as all of us with any mercy in our hearts would wish to intervene, it is not our place to do so. The mortals must learn to take care of themselves and their world without us.”

Diana frowned. “But the threat is—”

“I am aware of what is transpiring,” Xiwangmu assured her, cutting her off. “But it is not our place to become involved. Was that not why your own father and his pantheon withdrew themselves from the mortal world?”

“What?” Diana’s chest constricted. “What are you talking about? Ares killed them all.”

Xiwangmu sighed. “Ah, yes, there was some deception, was there not?” A bitter smile. “This would take too much to explain. Come, I will show you.”

She rose again, and led the way into the garden. There, beneath the blossoming peach trees was a pond lined with intricately carved jade. Diana looked at the pond and the foreign goddess in confusion. “What are you showing me?”

“The Jade Pond has many powers,” Xiwangmu said, waving her hand over the water’s surface. “Among them is the power to show distant events. The present, the future, or the past…”

An image began to form on the pond’s surface, depicting a fine marble hall with a roaring fire…

***

**Mt. Olympos, 3117 years earlier**

  
  


Zeus sat in his throne to call his siblings and children to attention. “I have gathered you here for a reason,” he said, refusing to look at the smirking Titan in the back of the room. “I have determined that the Trojan War was not sufficient.”

“Sufficient for _what?”_ Aphrodite asked, an anger on her face that nearly ruined her beauty. “Do you dare to say that you had some kind of…some _role_ in creating a war that nearly killed my son—and led to my own _injury?!”_

“It was just your hand,” Athene said, shaking her head. “Just because you never felt pain before…”

“Do I have another role to play?” Eris asked, suddenly appearing beside Zeus’ throne. “I’m always eager to—”

“No!” Zeus cut her off with a roar. “The war was necessary to reduce the number of demi-gods among the mortals.”

“You _wanted_ to see my son die?” Thetis demanded, her eyes still reddened with tears for Achilleus, even though he had been dead more than a year.

“Then you want another war to kill my Ainieas?” Aphrodite immediately interjected, her own eyes beginning to well up with tears.

“Silence!” Zeus hurled a thunderbolt out the open doorway, causing a roar that left the room so quiet that they could hear the raindrops falling on the mortal plane far below.

“I am overworked as it is,” Hades said. “If there is to be another war on that scale, I will need more helpers.”

“I do not intend another war among the mortals,” Zeus informed him. “I want us to step aside and leave the mortals entirely alone for the rest of time.”

“But where _will_ you find your mistresses then?” Hera asked, with a sarcastic smile.

Zeus ignored her. “We need to make the mortals aware that we will never again intervene.”

“Father, I have no objections to leaving the mortals alone,” Athene said, “but not _yet_. The Hellenes have not all returned to their homes yet. There are those who still need our protection. And our punishment.”

“My plan will take time to prepare,” Zeus said, smiling at her. “You will have plenty of time to make sure Odysseus returns home safely and that Aias is punished for desecrating your temple.”

Athene nodded, but the Titan in the back finally stopped smirking. “I’m sorry,” he said. “Did you just call it _your_ plan?”

“I warned you to keep your mouth shut, Prometheus!” Zeus produced another thunderbolt, hefting its weight in the Titan’s direction.

Prometheus raised an eyebrow, and did not reply.

“What is this plan?” Demeter asked, a conciliatory tone to her voice. “How will it make the mortals believe we will stop aiding them?”

“In short, we must convince them we have had a war amongst ourselves,” Zeus said, “and all slain each other.”

A general outcry rose up at that, nearly every god in the room shouting at once. The sole closed mouth was Hestia’s as she prodded the flames in the central hearth. The flames rose up until they licked the ceiling, distracting the gods from their argument and quieting the room once more. “You were saying, brother?”

“Hephaistos will create clay eidolons of us,” Zeus explained. “They will quarrel and battle amongst themselves before mortal witnesses, until all of the eidolons have been destroyed. The mortals will then return to their lands and tell their companions that the gods are dead. There will thus be no more expectation that we will intervene in their lives. All the prophetic visions have assured me that if we do not separate ourselves permanently from the mortals, they will either never develop, or they will determine to kill us themselves.”

“And you’re trusting this Titan’s word on that?” Poseidon asked, giving Prometheus a side-long glance.

“My own visions have shown the same thing,” Apollo commented. “I dislike feigning death, but it may be best for both ourselves and the mortals.”

A general murmuring went about among the gods. It was eventually interrupted by Thetis. “What about the demi-gods who were so pointlessly slain at Troy?” she asked. “Can we not bring them here to Olympos and give them new life as minor gods in recompense for all their suffering?”

“It would make life less boring if I had more people to spar with,” Heracles commented. “I’m in favor of it, Father.”

“All but one,” Ares said, glaring at Thetis. “That monster of hers needs to be punished for slaying my daughter!”

“Killing her was already his punishment!” Thetis insisted. “He quite fancied her, the poor darling.”

“You want to punish Achilleus? Don’t revive Patroclos, then,” Hermes laughed. “Nothing would punish him more than forever separating him from his lover.”

Zeus grimaced. “Thetis, I will give your request due consideration, and inform you of my decision when the eidolons are ready for the battle.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I apologize if I got anything drastically wrong about Xiwangmu. I'm afraid I only did Wikipedia-level research on her. If I did make any mistakes, please let me know and I'll fix them. :)


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's very awkward, trying to figure out how Zeus should refer to Persephone. Daughter? Niece? Sister-in-law? (All of the above...)
> 
> I know it feels weird that none of this discussion mentions the Elysian Fields (or the Blessed Isles or the White Island), but as far as I can tell, all of those were later introductions to the myths, certainly not yet present in the Late Bronze Age. (Though, really, it's not like the gods had yet become the figures we know from the classical era by that point...)

**Mt. Olympos, some twenty years later**

When the gods convened again around the hearth, it was a tired-looking Zeus who sat on the throne. “I have spent the last ten mortal years in conference with my brother, my daughter, and the three judges. We have determined the list of mortal and semi-divine heroes who will be granted a new life here in Olympos with us; the list should pacify all of you and ensure that no mighty hero will miss his due eternal rewards. Once the sham battle is over, they will be revived, and will build themselves a new palace to live in. As the eidolons have all been prepared, we must each grant them a tiny fraction of our powers to bring them to life, then set them to battling on the field that Hephaistos has prepared for them. Mortals from all parts of Hellas have been summoned to witness the charade.”

“What about my son?” Thetis asked. “He _is_ among those to be revived, is he not?”

“Of course,” Zeus sighed.

“But what about Penthesileia!?” Ares demanded.

“She will be revived as well.”

“But what punishment upon Achilleus for having killed her?”

“Why should he be punished for having vanquished his foe in battle?” Athene asked. “The Amazon queen was a great and noble warrior, and he defeated her honorably. Her death was unfortunate, but it was war. To punish—”

“At least let me transform him into some beast as monstrous in appearance as he is in his soul,” Ares suggested. “Something with horns and a tail and the legs of a goat.”

“You shall never harm my son!”

“Thetis, calm yourself,” Zeus said. “Achilleus will not be punished for granting a warrior an honorable death. He even killed one of his own men to defend her honor and the sanctity of her remains. You have no reason to demand he be punished, Ares.”

“If he is to escape punishment, then all the mortals will think me weak!” Ares insisted. “She was my favorite daughter! I have to avenge her!”

Zeus began drumming his fingers on the side of his throne. “This is why everyone hates you, Ares,” he said, with considerably less decorum than was appropriate for the king of the gods.

While the other gods were laughing at Ares, Hermes stepped up to his father’s side. “What if Ares had a more prominent role in the false battle?” he suggested. “If he’s worried about his reputation with the mortals, then surely that would allay his worries, if they think he led the insurrection against you, attempting to overthrow you as you did your own father, and he did his own father.”

Zeus nodded. “Will that pacify you, Ares?”

“Would I get to win?”

“Win?” Zeus repeated. “The idea is for all of our eidolons to destroy each other. How could you win?”

“If my eidolon wins over all the others, then I’ll accept Achilleus receiving no further punishment for killing my daughter. As long as he never comes near her again.”

“How could your eidolon possibly win over all of ours?” Artemis asked. “You were wounded by a _mortal_ , trapped in a bronze jar by giants, and Athene has beaten you easily dozens of times. In what world could you ever defeat even one of us, let alone all of us?”

“Those are my terms.” Ares turned a cold gaze at his father. “Either my eidolon wins, or I destroy all the eidolons before the false battle can begin.”

“Maybe I should just destroy _you_ ,” Zeus suggested, idly twirling a thunderbolt in the fingers of one hand. “There must be room in Tartaros for one more…”

“Father, maybe…maybe I could remake the eidolon of Ares,” Hephaistos said, limping his way up between Zeus and Ares. “If I crafted it from stone, it would be so hardy that it would be able to defeat the eidolons of clay.”

“Such absurdity…” Zeus grumbled.

“You know, Father, I rather like the idea,” Athene commented. “If Ares is seen to destroy the rest of us in a fit of blood rage, it will once and for all encourage the Hellenes to denounce his school of mindless warfare. They will only permit themselves civilized, intelligent combat after they have seen how destructive Ares’ style of battle truly is.”

“Very well,” Zeus sighed. “Go ahead and remake his eidolon of stone.”

Hephaistos bowed his head, and hurried out of the room, using his little metal girls to help him move quickly. Ares began to strut about the room like a peacock, grinning at Aphrodite as he did so.

“I foresee one problem with that solution,” Prometheus commented. “A stone eidolon will be too hardy for the mortals to destroy as well. It will continue on interfering with them for countless centuries to come. It would take perhaps as many as five thousand years for the infusion of divine energy to leave it just a statue again.”

Zeus frowned, then got to his feet. “I’m sure it will be fine,” he said. “But I seem to have forgotten a brief errand I must run. I’ll be back before Hephaistos is done.”

He hurried from the room before anyone could stop him. “Off to visit his lust on one last mortal maiden,” Thetis chuckled. “Such a lecher.”

Hera grimaced. “The new queen of the Amazons, no doubt,” she said, shaking her head. “Disgusting. I shall have to ask Hephaistos to create something to keep his lust in check from here on out.”

“Oh, I had a vision of something a bit like that from the distant future,” Prometheus said. “It was a called a chastity belt. Intended for the ladies, of course, but I’m sure someone as adroit as Hephaistos can come up with a version for men.”

“Might want to fit some of the revived demi-gods with one while he’s at it,” Artemis added.

***

**Mt. Kunlun, 1934**

  
  


The gods were still talking in the image on the pond’s surface when Xiwangmu waved her hand across it and the image faded away again. “I believe that should have told you what you needed to know. The fight between the eidolons was so destructive that all the mortal witnesses were killed except for the Amazon. Fortunately, the regular Hellenes didn’t seem to find it odd that they were no longer being directly contacted by their gods.”

Countless questions swirled through Diana’s mind, outraged and horrified, but the one that managed to voice itself was “What I defeated was only a stone statue?!”

“Yes.” Xiwangmu chuckled. “Did you think a true immortal would be so easy to defeat?”

Diana had not, in truth, thought it particularly easy. Though perhaps it _hadn’t_ been quite as difficult as it should have been, either. “My father is alive,” she said, trying to release a more important thought as well as to change the subject.

“Very much so.”

“And he never told my mother that.”

“She was purposefully left ignorant,” Xiwangmu agreed.

Should she attempt to return to Themiscyra to tell them that? No, perhaps it was best if they were left in the dark. Better to think they had no gods than to think they had such deceitful, conniving ones. “Thank you for letting me know,” Diana said, trying to restore her composure. “I have much to think about now.”

“And you will swear to stay out of mortal fights, yes?”

Diana hesitated. To turn her back on the mortals when such a dire threat loomed… “I want to speak to my father before I do anything else.” To learn for herself if that was truly what Zeus advocated, letting the mortals destroy themselves in such a horrible fashion.

“Of course. But you will remember what I have told you,” Xiwangmu said. “And do remember that it is not merely the gods of the Hellenes who have stepped aside to let the mortals live and die at their own actions. We have all done so, as we must, or the mortals will be nothing more than our playthings for all eternity. You cannot make yourself an exception to that rule.”

  
  


***

**Mt. Olympos, 1935**

  
  


It had taken a year, but she was here at last. Upon the summit of Mt. Olympos, Diana had found the ruins of a shrine, forgotten by the mortals below. It had contained a trace of the energy of the borders around Themiscyra and Mt. Kunlun, though the energy was dissipated and indistinct. But a year of research and experimentation had taught her how to connect with that energy, harness it, and turn it into a portal to the true Olympos, home of the gods.

Rather than the abandoned ruin that her mother had taught her to expect, she found a fine palace much like that of Agamemnon in Mycenae, surrounded by a beautiful garden and athletic fields in which young men—presumably some of the revived demi-gods mentioned in the vision shown to her by Xiwangmu—were competing in races and other games. Unsure if she should approach the athletes or the palace, Diana stood there merely observing until she was herself approached by a handsome youth wearing a simple tunic and a pair of winged sandals.

“Welcome, sister,” he said, grinning at her. “We’ve been expecting you.”

“Expecting me?” Diana repeated. “How?”

“Did you think we wouldn’t notice someone playing around with our front door?” He laughed.

Unsure how to reply, she shook her head. None of this was going at all how she had expected, somehow.

“Come along, then. Father’s eager to meet you.”

Diana began to follow him as he headed inside the palace. “Are you…are you _really_ Hermes, messenger of the gods?” she asked.

“Who else would I be?” He laughed again. “Perseus gave my sandals back right away when he was done with them. Boy’s too honest for his own good, if you ask me.”

Hermes led her into the same throne room she had seen in Xiwangmu’s pond. Hestia still sat by the fire that crackled on the hearth, and most of the other twelve gods were also in the room, gathered here and there, and all subtly—or not even slightly subtly—stealing glances at her as she entered. Zeus himself sat upon his throne, though he rose and crossed the room to meet her as soon as Diana entered.

“My dear daughter,” he exclaimed, enveloping her in a hug before she could react. “At long last—”

“Let go of me!” Diana pulled away from him, and pulled back her fist to strike him, though she found her wrist promptly caught by a scowling Athene. “How dare you act so casual when you have committed such wrongs against my mother—against all the human race!”

Zeus coughed, as though he wanted to seem embarrassed when he was most assuredly nothing of the sort. “It was necessary,” he claimed.

“I see no such need.”

“You were but an infant at the time, and hidden away. You didn’t see the world as we saw it. The way the mortals were coming to depend on us for everything.” Zeus shook his head. “It was necessary,” he repeated.

“But allowing that beastly creature to prey upon the mortals for more than three thousand years!”

“Beastly creature?” An offended and painfully familiar voice repeated.

“Ares!” Instinctively, Diana reached to draw the sword that she no longer wore at her waist.

Surprisingly, the god jumped backwards, ending up behind Aphrodite, almost as if he was hiding from Diana.

“You have to understand that we never expected the eidolon of Ares to be quite as much of a threat—or as cunning—as it turned out to be,” Athene said. “It must have gained some of Hephaistos as well as of Ares when it was brought to life. As you can see, the real Ares is what the mortals would call—”

“A milquetoast,” Hermes said, with a laugh, causing a roar of anger from behind Aphrodite.

“I was going to say _miles gloriosus_ , to use the Roman phrase,” Athene chuckled, “but yours is not entirely wrong, either.”

“All that is in the past now,” Zeus said, smiling at Diana as if everything was magically forgotten and forgiven. “You will be staying here with us, of course.”

“I will do nothing of the sort. I do not belong here.” And learning how very human the gods were in their behavior was considerable incentive to leave and never return. “My place is with the mortals. Someone must look after them.”

“You can’t do that. We all swore oaths to the River Styx that we would let them alone,” Zeus told her, his voice suddenly cold and filled with a gravitas he had lacked previously.

“I swore no such oath.” Diana shook her head. “I cannot let them suffer so.”

“There is only one of you,” Athene said, “and you are ageless but not truly immortal. If you try to protect the whole world from itself, you will only end up dead, useless to all.”

Diana frowned. Athene’s words were not wrong. But if she stood by and did nothing, how would she be any better than these selfish Olympians who had made her as the unwitting remedy to a threat that was also of their making?

“You can still protect the innocent from the ravages of war,” Demeter suggested. “You mustn’t try to interfere to prevent the mortals from acting on their own cruel ways or they will never learn to improve, but that doesn’t mean you have to turn a blind eye to the suffering they inflict in the process.”

Apollo nodded. “I have seen visions of terrible things in the coming war. The mortals learned to use flight as a weapon in the last war, and they will put that to grisly use in the new one, dropping bombs on cities full of civilians, killing women and children by the hundreds. You can help them get to safety without them ever knowing that you are in any way different than they are.”

Diana had heard all the reports, all the theories among the Americans and British, of how devastating such bombing campaigns might be. But were the Germans actually going to do something so ghastly without the influence of the false Ares leading them into excessive levels of cruelty? “Yes,” she finally said. “Maybe I will be of more use in protecting the civilians than in exhausting myself trying to prevent the war.”

It lacked the glory of the field of battle, and would do little to prevent further wars, but it would not be so terrible a violation of the policy Xiwangmu had urged upon her. And she would not have to do it alone; Etta and the other mortals Diana had befriended would be of great use in helping to protect the people of England from enemy bombs, even though age was beginning to slow them down.

Maybe someday she would feel free to return once more to the battlefield, but for now it would do.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry about the Calibos joke. I couldn't resist. :P (I have zero idea why they decided to give Thetis a different son before Achilles, but...considering how monstrous Achilles was to everyone except Patroclos, it's actually pretty fitting.)


End file.
